


i've fallen in love, but it's falling apart

by Anonymous



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Remnants of Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Virtual Reality, and tries to deal with remembering that all of his classmates were remnants, in which kokichi wakes up from the simulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27128411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The hydraulic press had inched closer and closer. His eyes had widened, but he had no strength left in his body to even flinch.You’re sure you want to do this?a voice had echoed in his ears.Despair took my beloved detective away from me,a voice that sounds like his own responds.It’s only fair that I get to steal his heart all over again, isn’t it?And then Ouma Kokichi was no more. Or, at least, he should have been.(Kokichi wasn't a remnant of despair, but Saihara Shuichi definitely was.)
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 154
Collections: Anonymous





	i've fallen in love, but it's falling apart

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in an AU where every member of the V3 cast except Kokichi are remnants of despair. Kokichi agrees to act as an observer over their virtual rehabilitation, only it obviously goes wrong and the events of V3 occurs.
> 
> This idea suddenly came to me out of nowhere. It’s not expanded upon greatly because I’m here to write light Kokichi angst, not to think about realistically how this AU would actually play out. It features an unnamed OC who doesn’t really matter, they’re only here to fill a necessary role.

When Kokichi finally awakens, his hand is stretched up the sky and his eyes are flooded with involuntary tears, but his throat is far too dry and through the blur he can see nothing more than a clinically white ceiling. 

A familiar face peeks over the edge of the bed he’s currently lying in, although it’s hazy, the memories not quite whole just yet as his mind pieces together the puzzle a mastermind had scattered. “You’re finally awake again,” she says, a relieved smile gracing her usually stoic features. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Ouma.”

He croaks out her name from dry lips, although he cannot put his finger on why he even knows who she is. She carefully rises him up off his back and presses a glass of water into his shaky palms, staring as he gulps it down, greedy in his thirst. There’s an edge of anxiety to her often blank expression, as if she can barely cope with Kokichi being right in front of her.

Kokichi attempts to shift around, a heaviness to his whole upper half, as if he has been paralyzed for far too long until his bones finally mended themselves. His movement is obscured by tight bindings around his ankles and stomach and he makes an uneasy noise of confusion. He doesn’t like being tied down, being unable to do nothing but sit for the waiting fate that comes down with vengeance. 

“Ah, sorry about that.” The woman pulls back the sheet that lies over his skinny legs and loosens the straps. Kokichi stretches his limbs out experimentally, testing how badly they must have degraded for him to be in this state, wincing at the soreness that strikes through his joints. “You started screaming the first few times you woke up, so you had to be sedated just in case you got hurt when they took you out of the pod.”

Kokichi looks into her concerned eyes and  _ remembers. _

“You know, you don’t have to do this, Kokichi.” His supervisor had never used his first name very often. He noticed that about her a lot, how she would always distance herself far away from any of the other staff here, as if she was terrified of clinging onto what little she had left in case it slipped out of her fingers. 

Kokichi was scared too, scared of losing them, even more scared of losing  _ him. _ That was why he was so willing to do this after all, because there was nothing else left waiting for him outside of the foundation’s walls. DICE was long dead and buried and they were the only family he had ever known. Well, Shuichi had been on that path too once, as the closest thing Kokichi had to a confidant before a black-and-white bear tore it all up brick by brick. 

“Someone who understands who they once were needs to keep an eye on them,” he murmured, fingertips ghosting over his neck where he could still feel the phantom grip of Shuichi’s hands. “And there’s no one else left from when they still had hope, no one but me.”

And then Kokichi had forgotten. 

He may have forgotten, but something had nagged at the back of his mind, pushing and pulling and desperately trying to tell him something that his mind couldn’t manage to vocalise without splitting his head in two with the pain. 

“I’m sorry,” Shuichi had said once when Kokichi had caught him shamelessly staring, stumbling over his words in an attempt to defend himself. They were young in a sense then, new to the game that would eventually ruin all chances of trust and comradery, and Shuichi still treated him with a sliver of warmth. “It’s just - I can’t stop thinking about how something about you seems weirdly familiar.”

Kokichi had teased him then, words he cannot recall now about how Shuichi must be falling for his charms already if he’s so willing to gawk at Kokichi, but he couldn’t quite laugh it off. It was weird, because Shuichi felt familiar too, much too familiar, as if Kokichi had managed to memorise every little one of his quirks in the few weeks they had known each other. 

Tsumugi, though, was different. Whenever Kokichi had met the eyes of the other contestants - even when their gaze had shone with resentment and poorly concealed distrust - he felt as if part of him that was a little more naive could believe in them, as if he was observing someone who was once a comfort. But when he saw Tsumugi, sirens would blare in his ears, his warning alarms set off by the strange coldness she only seemed to direct his way. She was wrong and she didn’t belong there, somehow Kokichi knew that to be a fact. 

He should have realised sooner. It was obvious, in hindsight, that Kokichi knew the mastermind on instinct alone. But while he never wavered from his main goal, something in him was splintering, shattering beyond repair, as the genuine intrigue in Shuichi’s eyes began to fade. His beloved detective had ignored the blood pouring from the freshly made wound on Kokichi’s forehead and swore with apathy in his voice that Kokichi would always be alone and something in Kokichi had cracked. 

In the few nights he had left, a series of nightmares began. Just faint memories of his hands caked in blood that was certainly not his own as bodies cloaked in that white uniform lay motionless on the floor of their hideout. He couldn’t save them, couldn’t save anyone, not even those who resided closest to his locked heart, and so he ran. He ran till his legs and lungs burned in tandem and he had whispered  _ Saihara-chan  _ into the ash-filled air and only had swirling eyes stare back at him impassively. And then he ran once more, desperately fleeing from the reality that despair encroached with every step he took. 

The hydraulic press had inched closer and closer. His eyes had widened, but he had no strength left in his body to even flinch.  _ You’re sure you want to do this?  _ a voice had echoed in his ears.  _ Despair took my beloved detective away from me,  _ a voice that sounds like his own responds.  _ It’s only fair that I get to steal his heart all over again, isn’t it?  _ And then Ouma Kokichi was no more. Or, at least, he should have been. 

His supervisor gives him a couple minutes of silence to breathe and settle into the fact that he is still here, somehow, finally free of that false reality. “Are the rest-” Kokichi begins, but he pauses to rub at the tears that drip from the corners of his eyes without his consent, soul still aching from the guilt and the pain and the fear. “Are the rest awake yet? Is the game even over?”

She eases the glass of water from his shaking grasp, placing it on the cabinet by his bedside. There’s a bouquet of fresh daffodils there, none of them near to wilting, the entire opposite of desaturated Kokichi, who has been drained of all his colour and vibrance. “The game is over now, yes, but none of them have woken up. Not yet. They still have a lot of recovering to do, but you-”

His supervisor is casually blunt in a manner that should sting, but Kokichi is numb to trivial pains now. It’s better to rip the band-aid off now and he tries to cope with the fact that he’s the outsider even outside of the game, a sixteenth wheel, the only one of them that had never fallen to despair and the one who hasn’t been gifted any time to grieve. “I’m the only non-remnant, so I won’t need any help, will I?”

“Now I never said that.” Her tone becomes as gentle as she can manage and it’s not all that comforting, but Kokichi can’t blame her for it, when it’s far too difficult to be genuinely kind-hearted in the world they live in. “After everything that happened in there, you’ll need help and we’re going to get you it.”

“You saw everything, didn’t you?” Kokichi tries not to care about how others perceive him, considering he had once been so unapologetic in his messy attitude, but he can’t help feel a little put off that everyone got to witness his many bad decisions in the path for victory.

“I did,” she answers simply. “And what you did was brave, considering the circumstances.” Kokichi wants to laugh. He feels like a coward through and through, already escaping the virtual reality that had been home to so many bad endings, but he can’t manage a chuckle when his throat is scraped raw. “You’ll deny it the very end, won’t you? But throwing away your life for the sake of outsmarting the mastermind isn’t something to take lightly.” 

Kokichi ignores her words, instead opting to try and climb out of the bed, scrambling to rip all the cords off his body that connect to the heart monitor. His supervisor doesn’t attempt to stop him, even though his own legs can’t handle his miniscule weight and he stumbles, almost crashing into the ground. “Take it easy, kid,” she steadies him with one hand. “It’s been months since you’ve actually walked.”

He doesn’t appreciate his lack of autonomy, not when he has spent so long walking around just fine even if the ground he was traversing wasn’t real at all. He’s thinner now, bones peeking out his skin, the curve of his shoulders and the points of his knuckles much more prominent. Kokichi hates it and he has nothing to do but distract himself with the questions he needs answering. 

“Who was Tsumugi?” Kokichi leans back onto the edge of the bed, pressing his face down into the high neckline of the sweater he’s still wrapped in. It’s the same over-sized one he had donned when he had entered the simulation, one of Shuichi’s last belongings that had managed to salvage from their dorms before everything had fallen apart. He tries to cling on to the lingering scent left behind of Shuichi’s preferred laundry detergent. “The system isn’t perfect, we all know that, but…”

“We’ve managed to track her down but she won’t talk,” she reveals and Kokichi can’t help but scowl, because even if they have the mastermind in their clutches now, she still got what she wanted. Kokichi is broken beyond belief and the others who will return back to being alive will surely have their own fair share of issues. “How the hell she even managed to hack into our systems, we don’t know yet. She was just another remnant that we had failed to capture before it was too late.”

“I want her to pay,” Kokichi whispers. It’s a guilty confession, one that feels as if it’s a sin. “But that makes me a hypocrite, doesn’t it? I won’t condemn my classmates for what they did to the world when they were in despair or what they did to each other in the game, but I’ll gladly go after her.”

“No one can dictate their own trauma, Ouma.” She rests a hand on his shoulder. Her presence may not be particularly consoling, but her touch is almost grounding, a reminder that he’s actually here and not just another lost ghost left lingering in despair’s wake. “And I can’t blame you for how you feel. Not after what I watched you go through.”

“Can I…” He trails off, his voice trembling and wavering, the boisterous supreme leader that once stood in his place no more. Kokichi has been worn down to his very core and the confidence sinks out of him, leaving behind an empty husk who’s sole wish is to see that beloved person once more before he lets himself drown in his loathing. “Can I see them?”

His supervisor hesitates for a second, likely because she hasn’t had permission to take him from the spot he stands in, but he can see the instant she caves. She has known Kokichi long enough to have something of a soft spot for him. “I’ll take you to their room, then.” And they walk, Kokichi limping heavily and leaning onto her side for stability, her arm around his shoulder to stop him from tumbling. 

The room is mostly dark, just illuminated by the light of the few monitors left behind. The air here is almost suffocating, made worse by the reminders as far as the eye can see of the lives Kokichi had toyed with. He wants to flee, but also doesn’t want at all, torn apart by his need to see Shuichi once more and the hurt that comes from that last thing Shuichi ever said to him, that reminded him so much of those swirling eyes staring through him as if Kokichi wasn’t even there. 

“We’re not exactly sure, but we think Saihara, Yumeno, Harukawa and Idabashi will likely wake up before anyone else.” And Kokichi can see them all, hidden behind thick glass, see the startling red of Himiko’s hair and Maki’s sharp expression even in slumber and Kiibo’s not-at-all metal face. The survivors that had foiled the mastermind when Kokichi could not. 

“She fed them so many lies,” she says quietly, as if talking too loudly could somehow shock them all out of their comatose states. She removes her grip and Kokichi is left standing on his own, his knees barely coping with the pressure, but he won’t ask for any assistance, not now, not ever. “She tried to throw them into despair with all of her might. But in the end, Saihara never caved. I can see why you’re so attached to him.”

“I’ll give you a couple minutes on your own with him, alright?” He ignores how she deliberately only mentions Shuichi. She’s right, though. Kokichi had tried so hard to perfect the skill of being a stone-cold liar, but in front of someone who knows him well, he’s nothing but a lovesick fool. “But you won’t have long. We need to get some actual food into you, and have a check-up while you’re still conscious.”

“I’ll be quick,” Kokichi promises. He only has a few things to speak in the empty silence, but he doesn’t think he could stay here for too long before the sickening feeling ravaged his already worn out body. The door clicks shut and Kokichi sighs, shuffling forward on shaking legs till he sees dark blue hair and a familiar black cap, collapsing into a cross-legged position beside Shuichi’s form. 

“Hey, Shumai.” Kokichi has no need to mask his tone when no one is truly listening, and so his voice is subdued and dull, muted in a manner that matches the defeated shine to his eyes. “You probably won’t believe in the possibility that any of us are alive. I mean, I was flattened by a hydraulic press. No one can come back from that.” Crushed is probably a better choice of a term but Kokichi has been light-headed since he first awoke and he’d rather not think of his fragile body being ground to pieces right now.

“But I’m here,” Kokichi whispers. “I’m here and I’m waiting for you.”  _ But you’ve forgotten who I really was,  _ Kokichi thinks.  _ Who I was before the killing game made me nothing more than a monster sitting on a throne of lies. You don’t know the real Ouma Kokichi. Not anymore. _

Shuichi won’t remember before, before the ruin, back when he and Kokichi could never be separated, back when Shuichi understood the true meaning hidden behind every compulsive lie. They aren’t the same anymore, neither of them are. Shuichi may have retained his personality despite the despair ravaging his very soul and Kokichi may still be a master of disguising his emotions, but they can never go back to the content fondness that was ruined in the face of a game no one saw coming. 

“Please come back to reality soon, Saihara-chan. You have a lot to catch up on.”


End file.
